The Magnificent Seven: Movie Review

Antoine Fuqua’s “The Magnificent Seven” is a remake of the 1960 classic which starred the likes of Charles Bronson, Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, and many more, which in turn was a remake of 1954’s “Seven Samurai” from Japan. The cast of this latest version is definitely nothing to sneeze at.  Denzel Washington, Christ Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Peter Sarsgaard are some of the big guns headlining this western.  I haven’t seen the original since I was very young and to be honest, I don’t quite remember most of it.  Because of that, I can’t fairly make any comparisons. I will say that despite having a stellar cast and some very entertaining sequences, “The Magnificent Seven” feels like it goes on for way too long.  A good fifteen-minutes leaner could have resulted in a much more enjoyable time.

Set shortly after the Civil War, the town of Rose Creek is taken over by the evil industrialist, Bartholomew Bogue.  He has the sheriff in his pocket and the residents under his boot.  A bullet comes to anyone who decides to stand up to Bogue or his men.  One of those unfortunate souls was the husband of Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett) who offers everything she has to bounty hunter Sam Chisolm (Washington) to help the townsfolk get their town back.

Chisolm enlists a rag-tag group of outlaws for the job. Wise-cracking gambler Josh Farraday (Pratt), Mexican outlaw Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Fulfo), Comanche warrior Red harvest (Martin Sensmeier), tracker Jack Horne (D’Onofrio), Sharpshooter Goodnight Robicheaux (Hawke), and his side-kick assassin Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee).  The cast, characters and tone make “The Magnificent Seven” feel like a more mature version of “Young Guns”.  That is not a bad thing as I am a fan of both “Young Guns” and its sequel.

The biggest issue I had with “The Magnificent Seven” is the not only does it feel too long, running at about 130 minutes, but that the villain (Sarsgaard) feels underused.  It is the cast that really saves the film. Everyone brings their a-game and Byung-hun Lee (who you might remember from the “G.I. Joe” films) really holds his own against the more familiar faces. Pratt is perfectly cast and even in not-so-good films, Washington is always good.   If you are a fan of the cast, then “The Magnificent Seven” might be worth checking out.  However, if you are not a fan of western, there is nothing here that will change your feelings on that.

By: Marc Ferman